Clinton Expands U.S. Benefits for Veterans Exposed to Agent Orange

President Clinton on Tuesday broadened federal benefits for veterans exposed to Agent Orange, ordering the government to provide disability payments and health care for Vietnam veterans with prostate cancer or the nervous affliction called peripheral neuropathy.

Clinton took the action after reviewing research from the National Academy of Sciences, which recommended adding the two ailments to the seven linked to the deadly herbicide for which veterans are already eligible for aid.

He also said the administration would propose legislation to give benefits to children of veterans suffering from spina bifida, a spinal cord disorder connected to the defoliant.

Veterans’ advocates said such payments, if approved by Congress, would mark the first time veterans’ family members have gotten benefits for an affliction suffered by GIs. They said they are optimistic that the government would follow up the move by extending benefits to family members suffering other disorders.

“Nothing we can do will ever fully repay the Vietnam veterans for all they gave and all they lost, particularly those who have been damaged by Agent Orange,” Clinton said. “But we must never stop trying.”

The announcement comes at a time when Clinton would benefit from improving relations with veterans. In recent days, he has come under attack from some veterans groups after his lawyer in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against the president included a reference to a 1940 law that exempts military personnel from damage suits during their service.

Aides said that the timing of the announcement was coincidental. But Department of Veterans’ Affairs officials acknowledged that Clinton did not make a personal announcement the last time the administration added illnesses related to Agent Orange to its eligibility list.

The defoliant was used in huge quantities during the Vietnam War to clear away the dense jungle undergrowth where the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers were hiding. Its use was discontinued in 1971.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars said in a statement that it was delighted at the prospect of broader benefits for Agent Orange sufferers.

A spokesman for the American Legion hailed the announcement as a highly important expansion of benefits because of the large number of prostate cancer sufferers and the prospect that Congress would agree to cover veterans’ family members for the first time.

“That could change the whole way benefits are offered,” the spokesman said. He predicted that members of Congress would have difficulty turning down an administration legislative proposal aimed at helping disabled children.

The benefits will be offered to any veteran who served in Vietnam or in the surrounding waters.

Department of Veterans Affairs officials estimated the first-year costs of the broadened benefits may be about $65 million and that five-year costs would be $350 million. That’s out of a total VA health care budget of $13 billion.

Eligibility will give veterans disability payments that range from $91 a month for a 10% disability, to $1,870 a month for a 100% disability.

The government’s expenses are likely to be highest for prostate cancer, a disease that is striking American men with increasing frequency.

The department estimated that 1,200 prostate cancer sufferers will apply for treatment in the first five years. But those numbers are likely to rise sharply as Vietnam vets, who are now mostly in their late 40s and early 50s, get older.

By some estimates, one in five American men will contract the disease over the course of their lives.